Would Nebraska and Texas A&M still be as successful in 2014 if they had remained members of the Big 12? (Eric Francis/Getty Images and Rainier Ehrhardt/AP Photo)

With a full round-robin schedule and lacking a conference championship game, the margin of error for the 10 teams in the Big 12 is slim this season. Three of the league’s teams — Oklahoma, Baylor, and TCU — remain undefeated at this point in the season. And while all three are capable of both lighting up the scoreboard, the trio has bucked the myth of wide-open Big 12 football and are all ranked among the top 13 in defensive S&P.

The discussion has centered on the worthiness of the various Power Five conferences and which of the quintet might get left out in the cold when the selection committee sits down in December to pick the final four for the inaugural College Football Playoff. Conference realignment has played a big part in this discussion, as three of the four teams that have bolted the Big 12 in recent years continue to maintain success in their new leagues.

Remember, this is a league that once boasted Nebraska, Texas A&M, and Missouri among its membership. (There was also Colorado, but that was far less of a loss for the Big 12 than the other three.) All three are in this week’s top 25 of the FBS Top 128 Power Rankings, a combined 14-1 entering the second month of the season. Nebraska remains the only unbeaten team in the Big Ten, while Texas A&M heads the Top 128 for the second straight week after surviving an overtime scare against Arkansas. Missouri, meanwhile, won the SEC East last year and is the only team in the division in 2014 without a conference loss at this point.

Would the Big 12 be the preeminent league this year with these three teams still in the fold? Imagine if only Colorado had bolted the league, and TCU had been tabbed as the Buffaloes’ replacement. That would give the conference six teams among the top 25 slots in this week’s rankings — including the first-, second-, fourth-, and fifth-ranked teams in adjusted margin of victory. In terms of adjusted margin per game, current and former Big 12 members are represented by five of the top eight teams.

We often hear about the SEC’s strengths, and the Pac-12’s ascendance. But the hidden factor of conference realignment is what it has done to gut the depth of certain leagues. While the prime example remains the Big East’s implosion, the fact remains that the Big 12 was also one of the biggest losers of realignment. Especially in the recent past, when Texas has fallen from its perch and cannot be counted upon to supply much-needed depth in the loop, the loss of teams like the Huskers and Aggies and Tigers has been a boon for other conferences.

Of course, the flip side is the question about whether or not Missouri, A&M, and Nebraska would be as successful if they had remained in the Big 12. These three teams were lost in the shuffle most years, buried behind the Texas/Oklahoma story that regularly dominates the conference. Nebraska and Missouri were the class of the North Division during their last half-decade in the conference, but ultimately the power had skewed irrevocably toward the South. And it was there that A&M had been buried behind the Longhorns and Sooners as well as the rise at various times of Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and Baylor.

We can never definitively know what the Big 12 might look like at this point had it, say, embraced expansion rather than allowing itself to be poached. Imagine mitigating the loss of Colorado with West Virginia and expanding to include TCU and another team (Louisville? BYU?) to balance the divisions. But it is readily apparent that the league’s footprint is producing some of the best teams of 2014, and we could see a rematch or two in the CFP bracket if things continue to play out in similar fashion over the next two months.

Here are some other quick thoughts based on an evaluation of the data through Week 4:

Speaking about undefeated teams, only 17 remain unblemished heading into October. The SEC has five of those unbeaten teams, all in the West Division. All of the five Power Five conferences still have at least one team without a loss, while Marshall is the only remaining team from the mid-major Group of Five to exit September unscathed. Here is the full list of unbeaten teams from among the full membership of each conference:

IND – 2/4 (.500)

SEC – 5/14 (.357)

BIG12 – 3/10 (.300)

PAC12 – 3/12 (.250)

ACC – 2/14 (.143)

C-USA – 1/13 (.077)

B1G – 1/14 (.071)

AAC – 0/11 (.000)

MAC – 0/13 (.000)

MWC – 0/12 (.000)

SUN – 0/11 (.000)

The data is starting to become clearer, but the leaders for several conferences are not who you might expect. The defending national champion is not at the vanguard of the ACC’s fight, but rather last year’s vanquished finalist from the championship game. Duke’s adjusted points per game is almost twice as high as that of Florida State (12.5 versus 6.7 points per game), a sign both that David Cutcliffe’s crew remains a viable contender in the ACC Coastal despite losing to Miami as well as the fact that the Seminoles are not nearly as dominant as last season’s crew. Similarly, the leader in the American Athletic Conference is neither East Carolina nor Cincinnati but Temple. The Owls (11.0 points per game) haven’t played as tough a schedule, yet even given the adjustments still average 2.8 more points per game than the Pirates and 6.4 more per game than the Bearcats.

The teams in the top 25, as a group, have not exactly played the meat of their schedules yet. According to the Sagarin strength of schedule component, 10 of the top 25 teams in this week’s Power Rankings have played a schedule rated 100th or worse among all Division I schools. Seven more have schedules ranked between 50th and 99th. Only one school, Arkansas, has played a top-10 schedule to this point, and only three others — Georgia, USC, and Missouri — rate among the top 20 toughest schedules to date. As conference play begins in earnest in the next fortnight, this trend should shift some as top teams take on their toughest tests of the season and the numbers shift anew.

(The weekly FBS Top 128 is calculated based on a formula described in Week 1. To review the methodology behind the adjusted aggregate score, read the full explanation here. To gain a better understanding about adjustments to the formula made in Week 3, click here. Go to the next page for adjusted margin of victory per game.)